Amid the eager thousands who made a New Year’s Day trek onto the Golden Gate Bridge were dozens of volunteers in bright orange armbands. The kind-eyed armband brigade weren’t there to gaze at the stunning scenery or kick off a New Year’s exercise regime. No, these folks were part of a hypervigilant group known as the Bridgewatch Angels, and they strolled the span to help thwart potential suicides at the Bay Area’s most iconic structure.

Construction has already begun on a suicide deterrent net, but the process of building a stainless steel mesh net approximately 20 feet below the nearly 2-mile-long span is expected to take about four years. According to available data, more than 30 people jumped to their deaths in 2017, and more than 230 were stopped from doing so. Sadly, the bridge is one of the most popular spots on the planet to take one’s life. And Mia Munayer is determined to stop as many bridge suicides as she can.

A Pleasanton police lieutenant, Munayer founded Bridgewatch eight years ago. She has no familial or close personal connection to suicide but found herself deeply moved by “The Bridge,” a 2006 documentary on the subject. Munayer learned of a small group of locals who would pace the Golden Gate Bridge and engage anyone who looked as if they might be in distress. She joined them, and soon the go-getting lieutenant turned a small, purposeful outing into a full-blown movement.

Munayer’s well-oiled volunteer-run machine and nonprofit organization works in tandem with law enforcement and, at least according to her, with the full support of the Golden Gate Bridge Patrol. “We have done so many interventions for them,” Munayer said of the nearly two dozen patrol officers designated to prevent suicide attempts on the Golden Gate. “We just did two on Thanksgiving and one on Christmas Day.”

As part of her day job, Munayer has completed crisis-intervention training and uses those skills, along with guidance from bridge-patrol officials, to train volunteers in the best and safest ways to engage someone in crisis on the Golden Gate Bridge. Along with a team of experienced regulars, Munayer organizes shifts of Bridgewatch “angels” to stroll the bridge on every major holiday. Among her devoted crowds are many who have lost family and friends to the tragic draw of the Golden Gate, and each Bridgewatch shift is dedicated to the memory of a specific person who died jumping from the bridge. For Munayer, the healing process for the families is just as vital a part of her mission as stopping a suicide.

I joined Munayer and about 80 others for the New Year’s Day afternoon shift and found myself paired off with Dorothy Morgan, a five-time Bridgewatch veteran. After a brief but effective training session, we were placed into teams and assigned stretches of the span to monitor for anyone displaying suicidal indicators, like an unwillingness to make eye contact or openly crying. Basically, we were supposed to say “Happy new year” to everyone, and if we got a concerning vibe, carefully engage that person in conversation.

Morgan and I were assigned mid-span and walked our beat for three hours, clocking just more than 6 miles (according to my FitBit). Following Munayer’s advice, we paid special attention to folks walking alone or anyone who looked sad. Up and down the span of the bridge, orange armband volunteers were cheerily greeting morose single people. I half-joked to Morgan that by the time someone got to us, halfway across the bridge, they’d see the armband and scream, “Yes, happy new year! I’m fine!”

Munayer explained that oftentimes, we’ll never know if we stopped someone from jumping. The vast majority of Bridgewatch volunteers spend their shift without incident, but in the eight years since Munayer has organized Bridgewatch, teams have engaged in dozens of interventions. They’ve also witnessed suicides.

The last time Morgan volunteered for Bridgewatch, she and her team saw a woman go into early labor, watched a wedding proposal and alerted the bridge patrol to stage a suicide intervention. “It was amazing,” Morgan marveled. “It was like all of the stages of life on the Golden Gate Bridge.”

Beth Spotswood is a San Francisco native who grew up in Marin County and returned to San Francisco after college in the East. She spent four years as a backstage dresser for “Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon” before signing on as a website producer for KPIX.

Spotswood’s work has been featured on KPIX, SFist, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7 Magazine, Porchlight Storytelling Series, LitQuake, Muni Diaries and the Bold Italic. She was the 2011 Reader’s Choice for 7x7 Magazine’s Hot 20 Under 40 and completed classes at Second City Training Center in Chicago. A Mission District resident for 15 years, Beth lives with her husband and a cat named Pompey.